A purported public notice of IIT Roorkee asking their students to refrain from masturbating in the showers is being widely circulating on social media. Stating masturbation in the showers as a violation of the hostel code of conduct at IIT Roorkee, the public notice states-“The excessive amount of semen in the drain costs thousands of rupees in maintenance and must be reflected in the hostel prices increase for next year.” This public notice purportedly issued by the Rajendra Bhavan hostel in IIT Roorkee urges students to masturbate inside their rooms instead of in the showers. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: A purported public notice of IIT Roorkee prohibiting their students from masturbating at the showers.
Fact: IIT Roorkee did not issue any such notice asking their students to refrain from masturbating. IIT Roorkee officials confirmed to the media that the viral notice was fake and emphasized that no hostel warden at IIT Roorkee issued such a notice. Several news sites published articles confirming it was a fake notice. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On observing the notification carefully, one could see many grammatical errors in the letter. Furthermore, one could spot a misrepresentation of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee as “Indian Institute of Roorkee” in the letter. IIT Roorkee’s Rajendra Bhavan hostel did not issue any such circular on its website. The proposed public notice has been circulating on social media at least since September 2019.
The Free Press Journal published an article related to this public notice and confirmed it was a fake one. Speaking to The Free Press Journal, the Rajendra Bhawan Hostel warden confirmed that the viral notice is a hoax and emphasized that no hostel warden at IIT Roorkee issued such a notice.
Several news sites published articles reporting the viral public notice was a fake one. A few of those articles can be seen here and here. Earlier, similar fake notices were shared with the names of Manipal University and the University of Miami. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the viral public notice shared in the post is fake and was not issued by the IIT Roorkee.
We contacted the IIT Roorkee media cell for clarification regarding this viral public notice circulating on social media. Responding to our e-mail, Sonika Srivastava, an official from IIT Roorkee’s media cell, clarified that IIT Roorkee had not issued any such notice to its students and said that the viral public notice attributed to IIT Roorkee is entirely false and fabricated.
To sum it up, this purported notice of IIT Roorkee asking their students to refrain from masturbating in the showers is fake.
Update (12 September 2023): This article has been updated to include the clarification from the IIT Roorkee media cell
